Project Title: Breathing: A Way to Unlock Better Performance
BASIS Advisor: Ms. Bocchino
Internship Location: Digital (New York, NY)
Onsite Mentor: Pilar Tumalo
The anxiety of a graded assessment is something that creeps up on all of us, and there is usually little we can do about it besides bite our lips and be hopeful until time expires. This was my attitude until I discovered the power of breathing, something that we do 20,000 times a day and think little about. We know so little about this necessary process that the answer to our anxiety troubles has been sitting under our nose this whole time. It was because of my fondness for gaining the upper hand that I decided to pursue a project in this area and conduct an experiment to see the efficacy of breathing in test taking situations. The experiment includes a 3rd grade class of students on two separate test taking occasions: the first involves kids taking an assessment as they would regularly do, while the second involves the students engaging in short breathing exercises before the exam. By performing a simple box breathing technique for 3 minutes before the assessment, this study examines the potential of an increase in score performance. The results here may lead to the conclusion that three minutes of breathing exercises can increase test scores. What should now be done to put these practices in play? Should BASIS Independent recommend these practices for students to do on their own or should they be commonplace in each classroom?
My Posts
Week 2: Breath Of Fire
One benefit of doing this project is being able to share the topic with those around me and also listen in on their feedback and questions. This was recently experienced at one of my soccer practices, where I was explaining to a teammate what I would be doing for the next couple of months instead […]
Week 1: Breathing With A New Mindset
This week was a lot of yoga and webinars. Kundalini yoga is something that my on-site advisor Pilar Tumolo introduced me to. I’ve known Pilar for my whole life, as she is one of my mom’s closest friends, and I immediately reached out to her to ask about being my advisor due to her specialty […]
Week 0: Introducing Breathing as A Way to Unlock Better Performance
Hello, My name is Webber Sloan and I’ve been a student here at BASIS since before our Red Hook campus was even built. A lot has changed since then, but the senior project has been something that’s remained in the curriculum here. I’ve been looking forward to doing this project for a while now, and […]